Rose Hill (7 page)

She shrugged and Scott thought she wouldn’t admit it if it was. When it came to business, Maggie took after her mother, a savvy businessperson descended from a long line of tight-lipped, frugal Scottish tradesmen.

He followed Maggie into her office and closed the door behind them. She sat at her desk and, after removing a stack of books lodged on the seat, Scott sat on the chair next to it. The computer took up half her workspace, and a stack of trade magazines and publisher’s catalogs covered the other half. There was an in-box filled to the brim with what looked like packing slips and invoices, and the glass of the window into the bookstore was covered in yellow sticky notes vying for her attention.

“You look busy,” he said.

“I am,” she said. “In between everything else I’m expected to do, I still have a business to run.”

“Would you rather I didn’t take up your time talking about the case?”

“Of course not,” she said, and gave him her full attention.

“Well, first of all I need to ask whether you saw anything unusual last night when you walked down to the station.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I did notice Theo’s Hummer parked in front of the Thorn, but it often is, so I didn’t think it was unusual. The fog was so thick I could barely see across the street. Evidently there was a big party in Mitchell’s ex-girlfriend’s building, which may be why no one heard Theo breaking into the vet’s office.”

“What are the scanner grannies saying?”

Maggie told him what Hannah found out about Gladys Davis turning off her hearing aids because of the party noise. He made a note of it. She also told him the vicious gossip going around about Mitchell, and he shook his head.

“Tell him to let me know if anyone gives him any crap. I won’t tolerate it.”

Scott got her caught up on all he had done since he saw her last, and although he stayed on the subject, internally he was swooning from her proximity. He couldn’t quit looking at her mouth, no matter how often he reminded himself to maintain eye contact.

‘I have got to get hold of myself,’ he thought. ‘I’m acting like a love-starved teenager.’

“So who killed him?” Maggie asked when he was finished talking.

“Too early to tell,” Scott replied, noting the oversized blue oxford shirt she was wearing was gapping in the front just below her bust, giving him a peek at the pale pink lace bra she was wearing underneath.

“It will be harder to find someone who didn’t want him dead,” she said.

“Including you?” Scott asked her teasingly, admiring the rosy color in her cheeks and the freckles sprinkled over her nose.

“He burned my house down because I wouldn’t sell it to him,” she said. “He as much as bragged about it afterward in the Thorn.”

“There was no proof, though,” Scott said, noticing a long red curl escaping from Maggie’s ponytail, and resisting the urge to wrap it around his finger. “The fire chief said it was the wiring.”

“There was something fishy about that,” Maggie said. “You know as well as I do there was nothing wrong with the wiring. I had all of it brought up to code after I bought the place.”

“Chief Estep was an honest man,” Scott said, conscious of the smell of her hair and skin now he was close enough to discern them. Her perfume was delicate and floral. “I find it hard to believe he could be bribed. He hated Theo with a passion.”

“Too bad he’s dead,” Maggie said, “or you’d have another good suspect.”

“Mmm,” Scott said, wondering what color panties Maggie was wearing, and imagining something lacy to match her bra.

“What’s wrong with you?’ Maggie asked him, in an irritated tone. “Are you drunk or something?”

“I think I might be,” Scott said, with a grin.

“Then go home and sleep it off,” she told him crossly, and reluctantly he did as she suggested.

When Scott checked in at the station at eight a.m., he had a message from Sarah, sounding irritated he wasn’t in yet. She wanted him to pick up Theo’s mail from the post office and arrange for it to be held. She also mentioned she would be in Rose Hill later and wanted to go over some to-do lists with him.

Scott sighed. It was bad enough he couldn’t be in charge of investigating a murder on his own patch, but he hated having Sarah boss him around as well. He wanted to check on Ed, follow up on the whereabouts of Willy, and talk to everyone who might have seen or talked to Theo on his last day alive, but instead he dutifully headed toward the post office.

Scott walked down Rose Hill Avenue to the small post office, which was across the street from Maggie’s bookstore. When he entered, he could see postmistress Margie Estep was attempting to help Mamie Rodefeffer–a cranky, wealthy senior citizen–buy some stamps. He almost backed out again, but Mamie turned and regarded him through thick lenses.

“Ah good, the police,” she said, and waved her cane in Margie’s direction. “You can arrest this woman for highway robbery.”

Margie said, “The price of stamps went up, Mamie. I can’t help it.”

Scott went around the dividing wall and pretended to look at notices posted on the bulletin board opposite the post office boxes, while he listened to Margie and the richest woman in town bicker over less than two dollars’ worth of stamps.

“And I know you’ve been taking my National Geographic magazines,” Mamie accused Margie as she left.

Scott smiled in sympathy at Margie, whose small round face was bright pink with irritation. Margie Estep was a short pudgy woman in her late forties, with a graying brown Dutch-boy haircut and a plain face made all the more unbecoming by dated looking large-framed glasses. Her wool cardigan was sprinkled heavily with dandruff, and her round collared blouse was buttoned up to the very top. She had never married, nor dated anyone as far as Scott knew, and lived with her invalid mother, Enid. Her father Eric was the fire chief for many years before he died in tragic circumstances.

When Scott asked for Theo’s mail she pumped him for information, but he told her he couldn’t discuss the case. He was not about to supply grain to the head grinder at the rumor mill. He was sure she was harmless, but he didn’t underestimate the town’s ability to jump to conclusions ahead of the facts. He hoped Mitchell wouldn’t encounter any unpleasantness due to the latest vicious gossip, but he half expected it.

Margie gave him Theo’s mail and Scott took it back to the station break room. He put on some latex gloves and went through the stack of envelopes. There were a few bills, some larger envelopes, and a thick envelope sent from a law firm in Pittsburgh. It contained a sales contract for the vacant Rodefeffer Glassworks property, and Scott could not believe how much Theo was getting for it.

Realtor Trick Rodefeffer, the grandson of the man who sold the property to Theo, was not listed on the contract or on any of the attached documents as the seller’s or buyer’s representative, although Scott knew he was handling the sale. Had Theo cut Trick out of the deal? Scott had seen Trick taking the prospective buyer around town on Friday, and this was postmarked Monday. Theo would have had to request the contract early on Friday, and then have it completed and put in the mail on the same day in order to make the Monday delivery.

Did Theo have the kind of clout with his attorneys where he could demand same day service? Would Trick’s cut be big enough to supply him with a motive for killing Theo? Trick wouldn’t have known about it yet. Or would he? Did someone in the lawyer’s office tip him off? Knowing Theo, he might have told Trick he was doing it just to piss him off. Scott added those questions to his list and set aside the documents.

Among the manila envelopes, there was one with Theo’s name and address computer-printed on a white label with no return address, postmarked Saturday. When he sliced the end of the envelope open, a card and a photo fell out. He picked up the card first. There was a painting of a vase of white lilies on the front with the words, “He is just away…” printed in a calligraphy font, and “But will live on in our hearts through our memories,” printed on the inside in the same font. Under the pre-printed message inside the card was another large white label like the one on the front of the envelope. This computer-printed label read, “You will pay for what you did.” Scott felt his stomach roll, as if he’d driven
too fast over a bump in the road.

He picked up the photo
and felt the rollercoaster sensation begin again. It was a faded color photo of three adolescent boys posing on the end of a dock with Bear Lake behind them, holding up fishing poles with a small fish hooked to the end of each line. They were puffing out their chests and grinning, sunburned and dirty in cut off shorts and grimy, unlaced tennis shoes, looking like they were having the time of their lives. Scott knew they were, because he was one of the boys in the photo. The other two boys were Brad Eldridge and Sean Fitzpatrick.

Ed Harrison was the photographer who took the picture with the camera he got for his sixteenth birthday. The date printed on the photo confirmed Ed and Scott were sixteen and the Sean and Brad were fifteen when it was taken. It was just two days before Brad drowned, not twenty feet from where they were standing.

Scott shook his head, trying to make sense of it. He never thought about it if he could help it, and certainly never reminisced over photos taken back then. Seeing himself and his friends so young and happy brought it all back.

That particular summer was a difficult one for everyone in the photo. Scott and Ed had been dumped by their best pals, Patrick and Sam, right after school let out, because the older two, now seventeen, were much more interested in drinking, parking, and necking with their girlfriends. Neither Scott nor Ed had a girlfriend who was willing to do any of that, nor a car in which to do it. For teenagers, a one year age difference can seem like a decade. Scott and Ed were still very much boys that summer, while Patrick and Sam were anxious to prove they were men.

Brad’s older brother, Theo, home for the summer and eager to remind his younger brother who was in charge, bullied Brad constantly and viciously. Their mother and sisters were away, visiting relatives in the UK, so there was no one to intercede on Brad’s behalf. Their father considered physical violence a normal part of family relations. To him it was just part of the toughening up process that turned sensitive boys into men who could easily kill any living thing, and were willing to use any underhanded means necessary to gain more money and power.

The day the picture was taken, the boys spent the morning fishing in Bear Lake, drinking icy sodas from a battered metal cooler, munching on sandwiches and corn chips provided by the Eldridges’ cook. They had three weeks until Scott and Ed began wrestling practice and Brad tried out for junior varsity football. Sean just ran track, so he didn’t have anything to do until the next spring.

To them it was just another long, sunny day in the middle of summer, most of which had been spent riding bikes, swimming and fishing in the lake, or playing pickup baseball games in a dirt lot down by the river until it got too dark to see. Two days after the picture was taken, on the morning of July 4th, a group of girls paddling canoes across the lake found Brad’s lifeless body floating face down among the cattails beyond the boathouse.

Because the lodge was outside the city limits
, the investigation into Brad’s death was performed by the county sheriff’s office. Brad’s friends were all questioned. Scott and Ed had spent the morning with some other boys, setting off fireworks down by the river, until the fire chief came and ran them off. They spent the rest of the day swimming in the city pool, eating popsicles they got for free from Hannah, who was working at the concession stand. Sean said he was with his brother Brian, helping out at their uncle’s service station all day.

Brad’s father may have wanted to quickly put the loss behind him, or just didn’t want any scandal attached to the Eldridge name, but for whatever reason, he applied considerable pressure on the county to wrap up their investigation by the day of the funeral. He only waited for his wife and daughters to get home in order to have the service, and then sent them all away immediately after. Brad’s father may have grieved terribly, but if he did so, it was done in private.

The official determination was death by accidental drowning. Brad was known to swim across the lake and back on occasion, and it was decided he probably experienced a cramp and drowned. Everyone knew Theo like to grab kids and hold them under the water until panic set in, only to let them up, gasping and crying, so he could laugh at them and repeat the performance. Most of the kids who had experienced this torture thought that was probably what happened, that Brad’s death was a horrible accident. Brad’s closest friends thought it might not have been an accident at all.

Scott wanted to take the photo and letter to show Ed, but under the circumstances, with his good friend a suspect in Theo’s murder, he knew he shouldn’t. He considered showing it to Maggie instead. Sean was her brother; maybe she would know something that would help.

He heard Sarah enter the station and ask Frank where he was. On impulse, Scott put the card and photo into the copier and had just enough time to produce a photocopy, slip it under the machine, and return the evidence to the table before she walked into the break room.

Sarah looked professional and attractive in a blazer, turtleneck, and form fitting pants. She looked Scott up and down and shook her head. He had on jeans, work boots, and a sweatshirt.

“I’ve heard of casual Friday,” she said. “But isn’t today Monday?”

Scott was embarrassed, but did not defend himself. This was supposed to be a day off for him, and he had slept very little since Theo’s murder. He showed her the card and photo, and explained whom everyone pictured was and what had happened. He expected her to be impressed, ask pertinent questions, and take some notes.

“It’s probably just a prank,” she said instead. “Some people have a sick sense of humor.”

“But it’s postmarked Saturday,” Scott insisted. “Before he was murdered.”

“We’ll look into it,” Sarah said, tossing it into her briefcase. “Anything else?”

He showed her the sales contract for the glass factory, explained who Trick was, and suggested he might be upset to know he was being cheated out of his percentage of the deal.

“Anything else?” was all she said.

He told her there was still no sign of Willy Neff or his truck, and handed her a copy of the man’s mug shot, which he had dug out of the files.

“Willy has no family,” he told her. “As far as I know Theo was his only friend, if you could even call it that. Theo employed him and bullied him is more the truth.”

Scott felt like he was back working as a lowly deputy, presenting his findings to the chief for inspection and approval. Everything he’d carefully put in plastic bags, Sarah carelessly tossed into her briefcase.

He waited to see if she was going to be equally generous with what she knew. He couldn’t demand she share anything with him and he didn’t know exactly what his position was in this conversation. Was he a peer, or a peon?

Sarah removed a report from a file folder and went over the highlights of what was found at Theo’s.

“Tig is still exploring the hard drive of Theo’s PC,” she said, as if Scott knew who Tig was, “and J.T. is still going through his paper files.”

Scott nodded. He did know who J.T. was. He was one of the deputies who followed him out to Theo’s; the one who woke Scott up on Theo’s porch after they searched the dead man’s home. Scott really hoped J.T. hadn’t told Sarah about that.

“Lots of prescription narcotics,” she recited, going down the list, “all from a Dr. Machalvie. Practices here in town, I suppose?”

Scott nodded yes.

“He also had a small quantity of marijuana and cocaine on hand, but it looks like personal use rather than distribution; and this, between the nightstand and his bed.”

She showed him photos of both sides of the gold coin, enlarged to show detail. It had Greek lettering on it, a profile of a man’s face on one side, and a seated figure on the other side, holding out a winged creature. Sarah instructed him to take the photos around and see if anyone recognized the coin. She said she was going to see Dr. Machalvie, and she’d like to meet Scott afterward for lunch to touch base. Scott agreed to meet her at the diner.

Clearly, he had his marching orders, but he chose to do something else instead. As soon as Sarah left, Scott took the photocopy of the threat card and photo out from under the copier and put it in a clean folder. He then went through the old files until he found a case folder for Brad’s death. Because the county had taken over the case, the file was not very full, but there were some handwritten notes and newspaper clippings.

An hour later, he had finished studying the documents and had a list of questions written in his notebook. He put everything together in a file and tucked it under his arm.

As he left the station, Scott saw Maggie’s brother Patrick crossing Rose Hill Avenue, going from his Uncle Curtis’s service station, where he worked during the day, to his Uncle Ian’s bar, the Rose and Thorn, where he worked every evening.